Human Rights Watch: Universal Credit recommendations

Recommendations
To the United Kingdom Government

    Ratify the Council of Europe’s Revised European Social Charter (ETS No. 163, 1996).

To the Department for Work and Pensions

    Expand telephone, in-person, and paper options to apply for Universal Credit, including through increased funding and support to the “Help-to-Claim” service and to Local Authorities and charities providing direct services to local communities;
    Increase the availability of in-person Jobcentre appointments to help people apply for, manage and resolve issues with Universal Credit;
    Increase the availability of public access to internet-enabled computers, including through the allocation of financial resources to support IT access in public libraries and community centers;
    Improve non-digital means of communication about changes to benefits and social security policies and practices, such as increased telephone announcements, mailers and print advertising;
    Ensure that communication strategies include websites that are accessible to people with different disabilities, such as increasing telephone-based services that have text capabilities for people who are deaf or hard of hearing, and ensuring that communications use plain language to maximize understanding (e.g. for persons with intellectual disabilities);
    Provide the online application in languages commonly spoken in the UK other than English and Welsh, and increase support for interpreter services;
    Until the five-week wait has been shortened or eliminated, allocate resources to convert advances on people’s first Universal Credit payments into one-off, non-recoverable grants;
    Suspend the recovery of advances for people who have begun to repay them, or at least for any person where there is evidence of imminent likelihood of severe food insecurity, homelessness or destitution;
    Suspend the recovery of all other government debts for the duration of the economic crisis caused by the Covid-19 pandemic;
    Urgently conduct a review of the monthly assessment period, carefully evaluating proposals to fix its flaws, such as moving to a weekly or fortnightly assessment period, or using averaged earnings over multiple periods to smooth out fluctuations in the monthly award;
    Evaluate reform proposals in consultation with a wide variety of stakeholders, including anti-poverty charities, charities that provide direct services to local communities, people with lived experience with poverty, public interest technologists, and independent social security experts;
    Publish impact assessments of the proposals under consideration, as well as plans for the final redesign, and provide the public with meaningful opportunity to comment;
    Ensure that the final redesign protects people’s rights across a wide range of personal and financial circumstances (e.g. people who are self-employed or on zero hours contracts);
    Give recipients of social security support more options to vary their assessment or payment frequency in the final redesign, particularly if the default frequency is less responsive to their needs (e.g. if a modified monthly assessment period is implemented, people with uneven earnings should be given the flexibility to average these earnings over multiple periods);
    Provide adequate training for Jobcentre staff, Help-to-Claim providers, Local Authorities, and charities providing direct services to local communities that empower them to assist in this decision making process;
    Work with all relevant government departments to introduce legislation ensuring that the redesign of the monthly assessment period protects people’s rights to social security, food, and other essential elements of an adequate standard of living across a wide range of personal and financial circumstances;
    While reform to the monthly assessment period is ongoing, establish an emergency grant program that provides relief to people experiencing budgeting and financial difficulties as a result of irrational benefit fluctuations and reductions that the Court of Appeal ordered it to rectify in SSWP v Johnson & Ors [2020] EWCA Civ 778;
    Extend the emergency grant program to people who are paid non-monthly wages and experience similarly irrational benefit fluctuations and reductions; and
    Set out a clear policy and timelines for responding to Freedom of Information requests for the duration of the Covid-19 pandemic.

To Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs

    Work with the Department for Work and Pensions to make appropriate modifications to the Real-Time Information System that will enable the Department to implement necessary changes to the monthly assessment period.

To the UK Parliament, including the Work and Pensions Select Committee and the Economic Affairs Committee of the House of Lords

    Continue to monitor where funding and other initiatives to support people applying for Universal Credit online are falling short, and develop recommendations to shore up support;
    Scrutinize the lack of support for people that struggle with online job-seeking tasks that are a condition of maintaining their Universal Credit and other online administration related to their benefit, and develop recommendations to ensure adequate support;
    Continue to monitor the impact of monthly fluctuations in payments and reductions in benefit amounts, particularly for people with uneven earnings and volatile working hours; and
    Examine the case for enforceable rights to social security and to an adequate standard of living for all and without discrimination, with the minimum standard being the UK’s commitments to these rights in international human rights law.

https://www.hrw.org/news/2020/09/29/uk-automated-benefits-system-failing-people-need